Abdullah

Stumble out into the inky Arabian night. I sport my standard desert fatigues: faded camo shorts, plain T, Converse boots in muted leather.

 

The car idling kerbside is not the Crown Victoria I expected to be piloted by Sulaiman. Black tints obscure all glass, windscreen included. The hulking BMW 7 Series with pearlescent paint job looks a marked upgrade to the rebadged 90s Ford Granada.

 

A door opens.

 

Shuffling up and out is the boilerplate caricature of a stoner. Shoulder length black hair nestles beneath a baseball cap skewed at an improbable angle. Eyes are slitted, reddened, rimmed with dark circles. Jarring with this is a pristine white thobe.

 

“Come in, bro…”

 

I slip in one side with Chongi nestling between me and our hash dealer on nish tan leather. The front shotgun seat is occupied by an emaciated, epicene youth with the same shock of raven hair. His is semi-tamed into a loose and careless ponytail.

 

“Wassup G? I’m Abdullah.”

 

The driver is Saudi but speaks with a transatlantic lilt. Western dress: dark jeans, a knitted polo, top-tier shades.

 

Exchanging greetings and small talk is a brief prelude to… “So…what do you want, guys?”

 

Before I have time to ponder what, exactly, I want, we lurch violently into choked traffic. The muted four-litre engine strains, whines for release.

 

A superannuated bus with Indian immigrant labourers hanging precariously from swinging doors barrels past in a billow of belching exhaust fumes giving no quarter whatsoever. I have never witnessed such parlous driving on such a grand scale anywhere on this globe as that in evidence in Riyadh. When no meaningful test exists, insurance is optional and, at age thirteen, it’s considered fair game regardless to clamber behind the wheel…well, this is what we end up with. Nomads palmed the keys to hundred grand trucks, overpowered vehicles chauffeured by incomparable incompetents scarcely able to move in a straight line much less manoeuvre. Like most other aspects of life in the Kingdom, the rules of the road are merely notional concepts. There is a deep duality between what is mandated by (sharia) law and what actually takes place. Superficially it’s all about procedure. Beneath the shimmering facade, though, raw nepotism, wasta, can subvert any procedure, render such procedure entirely irrelevant.

 

I had been sideswiped from what I want by the staccato delivery of a string of nigh-random boasting by the driver. He wants to impart upon us his elevated standing thanks to his father’s enviable job in an undisclosed police department, his swollen bank balance – “$750 a week for my apartment in Sydney. $750…” – in a nut, his general wasta.

 

All that assails my mind is a solitary poser: with fuel and insurance a non-issue, why opt for the 740i rather than the range-topping 760?

 

Stoned immaculate, I had expected to step out into the road, grab a couple of ounces of hash paid for in advance and retreat to my rooftop eyrie. Now, though…

 

“We go to Tony Roma, man. Tony Roma.”

 

Without allowing either of us the opportunity to intercede, Abdullah rattles on at full clip…

 

“Best ribs in Riyadh, man. Best ribs, you’ll see. We’ll go eat, hang out. Did I tell you the police can’t stop this car we’re in? They can’t do shit.”

 

He had told us. Twice. 

 

Fortunately Chongi manages to strong-arm his way into the monologue and informs the overzealous Abdullah that he needs to turn around.

 

“You serious?”

 

“Yes. We have football. Weekend is good, week bad.”

 

Chongi and me have both come to learn the importance of eliminating all frippery from conversation. We have come to learn the sway of directness. The nouns “procedure” and “problem” scythe through ten minutes of flim flam. They are words with disproportionate clout, words understood even by those desert dwellers with almost no command of the English language whatsoever. A look of blankness commingled with inbred imbecility can be morphed into a beaming smirk of comprehension with a judiciously inserted and emphatic, “No problem. No problem.”

 

“Problem?”

 

“Big problem.”

 

Sharking from far right hand lane to extreme left in a seamless glide, we are heading back home.

 

Sulaiman has remained a menacing background presence. He hasn’t slept in three days. He keeps telling us this. He looks like he hasn’t slept in a week. A roll call of most major drugs has been reeled off and, if he is to be believed – which, to be honest, he isn’t – are swimming around his system.

 

Sitting outside my building once again, Abdullah exits, snatches the much-discussed briefcase from the boot, re-enters...

 

“Business. Business.”

 

He shows us some plastic bank bags brimming with chalky pills – Xanax, Roche, Captagon (an amphetamine facsimile) – before brandishing a Ziploc of what he proudly claims is heroin. Last to appear is the hash we want, the hash we have paid for, the hash that is the only reason we entered his car twenty brain-sodomising minutes ago.

 

Eschewing the narcotics which Sulaiman is trying to press on us – commission? - we leave, ruffled and irate, with the usual block of Afghan resin. As usual it is much smaller than promised. As usual it will kick like a shotgun’s recoil so things could be much worse indeed…

 

This is what passes for a drug deal in the Magic Kingdom.